Simple AI Offer: A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Your AI Business

Introduction

Are you eager to dive into the world of AI and start your own business, but feel overwhelmed by the technical complexities and the sheer amount of information out there? This blog post is designed for beginners who want to break into the AI space without needing a huge development team, extensive experience, or even strong lead-generation skills. We’ll be breaking down a simple, actionable AI offer you can make to businesses to get your foot in the door, gain experience, and start making money. This guide will address the common challenges faced by newcomers, providing a clear path to becoming a successful AI entrepreneur.

Value Proposition: Learn how to make a simple AI offer to businesses, requiring minimal upfront investment and technical expertise, while gradually building towards your long-term goal of running a successful AI automation agency. Target Audience: Individuals new to AI, who are seeking a practical starting point without prior experience. Estimated Time Investment: Reading and understanding this guide should take approximately 20-30 minutes. Implementation of the proposed strategies may require several weeks or months, depending on your effort and pace. Prerequisites: None. A basic understanding of business concepts is helpful but not required.

The Knowledge Gap: How to Make Money in AI

Before diving into the offer, let’s understand the concept of a “knowledge gap.” In service-based industries, including the AI sector, money is made by filling the gap between what a business knows and what an expert knows.

The Continuum of Knowledge:

Imagine a scale of knowledge from 0 to 100, with 0 representing no knowledge and 100 representing the highest expertise.

Business Owner (10): A typical business owner might have a basic understanding of AI (represented by 10 on our scale).
Average AI Agency (65): An average or well-performing AI agency possesses a significant knowledge base and can implement AI solutions effectively.
Top AI Experts (100): The top experts in the field, with the highest level of expertise and command of the market.

Businesses seek AI agencies because these agencies have a knowledge gap between them and the client business. They pay agencies to close this gap and implement AI solutions. Most beginners mistakenly believe they must start at 65 or 100 but this isn’t true. You can be at a 25 and still provide value to business at 10. You do not need to be the top expert to make money. You need to know more than the business you are helping, and that’s how you create a knowledge gap and get paid. This gap is also expanded by your team’s collective knowledge and experience.

The Simple AI Offer: AI Tools Consulting

The simplest and most accessible entry point into the AI business is through AI Tools Consulting. This involves:

Helping business owners identify the best AI tools for their existing processes.
Providing tailored recommendations based on their specific business needs.

Why is this great?

No Implementation Required: You don’t need to build AI solutions yourself. You’re essentially recommending third-party tools.
Easy to Start: You can leverage existing tools without extensive development or technical experience.
Leverage Existing Products: You are selling existing tools from other people, which is easier than creating an entire business yourself from scratch.

When you’re starting out in business, selling other peoples products is the easiest way to start a business. You get to focus on selling and not on building an entire product from scratch.

AI Consulting vs. Other Services

Let’s look at where AI Tools Consulting falls in the spectrum of AI services:

Implementation (AI Dev Services): This is the most complex, requiring coding, development teams, and extensive technical skills.
Education: Creating content or courses on AI tools. While accessible, it doesn’t provide the same direct business interaction as consulting.
Consulting (AI Tools Consulting): A middle ground where you provide expertise and tailored tool recommendations.

AI Tools Consulting is a great starting point because you don’t have to jump straight into complex implementation or development. It allows you to gain experience and confidence while you learn.

The AI Tools Consulting Process

Here’s a breakdown of the process to get started with your AI Tools Consulting service.

Step 1: Build Your Knowledge Gap

Find AI Tools:
- Use YouTube videos from creators who test and review AI tools. Look for videos titled “best ai tools” or “ai tool reviews”.
- Look for tools in different categories like image generation, video generation, writing, and more.
Make a List:
- Compile your found tools into a Google Sheet.
- Include links, names, and initial categorizations of what each tool does.
Deep Dive:
- Shortlist the best tools from the list.
- Perform targeted searches on YouTube, Google, or even Reddit for tutorials and use cases of your shortlisted tools.
Try The Tools Yourself:
- Sign up for trials, test out the main features of the tools, and see if they do what you would expect.
Create a Tools Database:
- Use Notion (or a similar platform like Google Sheets or Google Docs) to create a database.
- Add details like the category, best use cases, key features, and your own notes for each tool.
- Use filters to organize your database effectively.

Step 2: The Free AI Tools Consulting Offer

Offer a free AI tools consultation in a three-step process:

Brief Consult:
- Conduct a call to understand the business’s departments and specific needs.
Match & Find More:
- Use your internal database to match tools to the business needs, while searching for additional tools specific to their industry.
- Utilize resources like “There’s an AI for that” or “Future Tools” to discover relevant tools.
Report:
- Create a detailed report with your tool recommendations. Use Canva for a template, or simply create one in Google Docs.
- Schedule a second call to walk them through the report.

Client Acquisition and Monetization

Client Acquisition:

Warm Outreach: Contact your existing network and ask if they know anyone who needs help with AI. This is the best way to get your first few clients.
Cold Email: Not recommended for beginners, but can be useful once you’ve nailed down your offer.
Organic Content: Create YouTube videos showcasing your AI knowledge. For example you could do a video titled “best AI tools for Realtors”. Include CTAs in your videos to encourage people to book a free consult.

Monetization:

Affiliate Commissions:
- Recommend tools with affiliate programs.
- Earn recurring commissions based on client subscriptions.
Partnerships:
- Refer clients to implementation-focused partners for a cut of the deal.
- Connect with AI development agencies or other AI entrepreneurs.

Remember, getting started is about building your skills, confidence, and a solid knowledge base, and therefore you should focus on providing value not making money.

From Free to Paid

Start with free consultations to gain experience. Once you are getting positive feedback, you can gradually transition to paid consultations. Once you have more clients and have more consistent lead flow, you can start to increase the cost of your consultation.

Conclusion

Starting an AI business can seem daunting, but by taking this simple approach of providing AI tools consultations, you can build expertise and credibility and create a path to success. This approach doesn’t require you to be an expert from day one but you can learn along the way.

Next Steps

Start building your tools database.
Reach out to your network for initial clients.
Create educational content to attract more people to your services.
Stay persistent and continue expanding your AI knowledge and experience.

With the right approach and commitment, you can make your mark in the AI space.